Love's Little Known Fallacies
by ilovetvalot
Summary: JJ and Rossi share a frank conversation about love and life. NON-Romantic believe it or not! - This isn't my usual fare.


_**Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has been patiently waiting for our stories to be posted. We appreciate your support and apologize for any delays. Real life, however, has taken precedence! We always want to be able to provide you with quality stories and chapters, so our postings may be a bit sporadic over the next month.**_

_**Please check out our most recent challenge on our forum – March Madness! The guidelines are simple: You suggest a pairing and choose a TV title from the list provided (shows are from the 70s, 80s, and 90s). We'll assign out the pairings & suggestions by March 4, and you have until March 31 to create just the perfect story based on the prompts you receive. Your final story does NOT have to be about the TV show prompt, but you do have to use the TV show title in the story somehow. Check out our forum, Chit Chat on Author's Corner, for details and to sign up…you can find a link on our profile pages.**_

_**And please, check out our new forum topic: A Fanfic Glossary! We want to know if you guys find it helpful and our topic thread "Our Stance on the 2010 Criminal Minds Fanfic Awards". We have also opened a Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior thread where you may discuss the show (respectfully, of course). We also have a forum announcing our fellow author's (Kathi1C) new IheartCriminalMinds blog. You can ask her questions and get directions on going to her site.**_

_**As always, we do not own Criminal Minds or any of the characters that we so enjoy writing. If we did own them, we would have never had JJ leave!**_

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**Love's Little Known Fallacies**

If she'd known that she wasn't alone in the seemingly empty park where she sat, she'd never have opened her mouth...never have uttered so much as a sigh. Of course, hindsight was twenty/twenty. And she hadn't looked around to assure herself there were no witnesses to her coming breakdown.

So her tears had been unreserved as she'd sat there upon her park bench, desolate, and railed against the fates. Her last and final showdown with Will would have to have been in public, making a spectacle of her on her own home turf. Wasn't there any such thing as a home field advantage anymore? Hadn't she at least earned that small concession?

"Love is a fucking lie!" she yelled at the quiet, unresponsive pond in front of her. "It's something we tell our little girls so they can go to sleep, safe and secure in the knowledge that one day their prince will come!"

"Actually," a deep, familiar baritone said from behind her, "it isn't love that's the lie. It's the myth of how love happens that is the true fabrication."

Christ, she thought almost tiredly, her eyes closing briefly. This was perfect. Don Juan was spouting advice on affairs of the heart from behind her. She really was in hell. And apparently there was no escape.

"Go away, Rossi," she said stiffly, not bothering to turn around. He'd see the tears if she did, and that was soooo not a weakness she was prepared to share with him today. Or any other day, for that matter.

"If you weren't prepared for me to follow you, you really should have been more carefully about running me over on your way out the door, Jen," Dave offered conversationally, frowning as he noted her sagging shoulders, her slumped posture. Very un-Jen like. "What's going on?" he asked, walking slowly around the bench to perch beside her even as he avoided looking at her face. There wasn't any doubt it was ravaged by tears, and he knew better than to draw attention to it. Or to her.

Hell, while he might not be as attuned to the rumor mill inside the Bureau as most of his colleagues, he'd have to hide under a rock in order not to know about Jennifer Jareau's recent public screaming match with her former fiancé. As it was, her shouting match would keep those wheels spinning for days...he didn't want to make things any worse by becoming enraged by her swollen eyes and pale complexion.

"You know what happened, don't you?" she asked huskily, turning her face away from him and staring at the flowering trees in the distance.

"The Martians know what happened, JJ," Dave said quietly, unwilling to belittle them both by playing stupid. He hadn't gotten to be his age without learning a few important life lessons along the way.

Snorting, JJ nodded tersely. "Thought so."

"If it helps, you deserve better," he said softly.

"No. I got exactly what I deserved," JJ whispered violently, her fingers clenching around the edge of the wooden bench. "I believed in love. I thought I'd finally found it, you know?"

"There is no such thing as it, babe," Dave chuckled hollowly, staring out over the serene pond. "Three ex-wives taught me that. And to dispute your earlier claim that you were busy screaming at the heavens...love isn't a lie. It exists. It's the falling in love that's the big myth. Biggest lie on the fucking planet, if you ask me."

"Pardon?" JJ queried, his comment drawing her gaze in spite of her earlier resolution.

Shrugging, Dave muttered, "You heard me. Nobody just falls in love. You can fall in like. You can fall in lust. But, you don't fall in love."

"This I've got to hear," JJ said, twisting on the bench to look at him. "You don't believe in falling in love? The Great Lothario of the FBI?"

"Those days were a long time ago and tales of my vim and vigor have been radically skewed, I assure you...but, incidentally, those bygone days are why I believe every word I'm saying," Dave remarked evenly, leaning back against the weathered wood as he stretched his arm over the top of the bench. "Falling in love implies that it happens instantaneously...that it's kismet or fate...or whatever new age fucked up term there is for it. But that's the lie. It took me a while to learn it, but I finally did."

"Go on," JJ invited hesitantly, unwillingly mesmerized by his version of wisdom.

"Well, in my experience, there's not a single moment where you fall in love, Jen. When it's really love, there's a series of instants...a conglomeration of events that occur...that when all the stars are aligned and God sits in His Heaven, you might realize you're in love. Love is about doing the work...making the sacrifices...having the patience. And if what I saw from LaMontagne was any example of the way things have been for you, I think it's safe to say that wasn't ever going to happen between the two of you."

"So you do believe in love?" JJ asked, curious as she cocked her head.

"I believe in love...I believe in being in love. But I don't believe people fall into love. At best, we wade into it...when it's real, that is. And sometimes we're drowning in it before we even realize we're in the damn sea."

Settling back against the bench, JJ blinked slowly. Oddly, she found his deep words comforting. "I can't believe I'm going to say this," JJ murmured, "but, that actually makes a lot of sense."

"Three exes, Jen," Dave smirked, wriggling three fingers dramatically. "I learned a thing or two."

"Did you love any of them?" she inquired without thought, biting her tongue as she realized that she might have stepped across some invisible line in the sand. But, what the hell...he'd started it.

"Hmmm," he hummed after a moment of considerate silence. "I was in lust with all thee," he answered with a sly grin. "In "like" with a couple. But I only loved one. At least, by my new and improved definition of love."

"That one," JJ said earnestly, leaning forward. "Why didn't you two work out?"

Smiling sadly, Dave turned his head to look at the woman beside him, his dark eyes soulful. "Because she didn't love me back. It's sort of a requirement for a successful marriage...or so I'm told."

"I'm sorry, Dave," JJ apologized softly, suddenly feeling a kinship with the older man that she had never realized could exist.

And covering JJ's slim hand with his, Dave's eyes returned to the water. "Me, too, Jen. Me, too."

**Finis**

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_**This story is dedicated to all those that have given their lives far from home. May God be with you.**_


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